
BY B. M. PALMER, D. D., 



OF NEW ORLEANS, 




^ NEW OBLEANS - 

“TRUE WITNESS” OFFICE, 88 QRAVIER STREET. 

18 59 , 


36 ) 










dbitr listnrir Jllissinn. 


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AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


EUNOMIAN AND 


PHI-MU 



LA GRANGE SYNODICAL COLLEGE, 


• JULY 7 , 1858. 

.> • 

BY B. M. PALMER, D. D., 










OF NEW ORLEANS. 



TSTEW OPILE-A-KTS z 

TRUE WITNESS” OFFICE, 88 GRAVIER STREET. 

18 5 9 . 



4--C3 

1 69 


CORBESPONDENCE. 


LA GRANGE, Tenn., July 8th, 1858. 


Rev. B. M. Palmer, D. D. 

Dear Sir — Having listened with great pleasure aud satisfaction to the very able 
address delivered by you before the two Literary Societies in La Grange Synodical 
College, on the evening of July 7th, we are authorized to request of you, a copy of 
t^e same, for publication. 

By complying with our request, you will not only confer a great favor on us, 
but on many others, who had not tlje privilege of hearing you on that occasion. 

We are very respectfully yours, &c., 

R. F. LANIER, ) HENRY F. SCOTT, ) 

W. R. PARHAM, > Phi-Mus. JOHN C. CAMPBELL, VEunomians. 

J. L. GRIGGS. S JNO. A. MOODY. \ 


i 


LA GRANGE, Tern., July 8th, 1858. 

To Messrs. H. F. Scott and others, Committee : 

Gentlemen — I am fully aware of the defects of the address which you request 
for publication. Yet as it was prepared for you, it is perhaps your property ; and 
as such I herewith submit it to your disposal. 

I am, Gentlemen, 

Respectfully and truly yours, 

^ M. B. PALMER. 


\ 


-A. D D E E S S « 


The student, in his attempt to achieve a competent knowledge 
of universal history, naturally pauses beneath the frowning 
shadow of so colossal a task ; just as the traveller stops to mea- 
sure with his eye the steep ascent of some rugged mountain, 
lifting its head into the blue heavens above. This spell of 
despair is soon broken by remembering with Frederick Schle- 
gel, that “ as the individuals who can be termed historical form 
but rare exceptions among mankind, so in the whole circum- 
ference of the globe there are only certain nations that occupy 
a historical and really important place in the annals of civili- 
zation.” The amazing bulk of history is at once compressed 
within attainable limits. Thus with the exception of Egypt 
and the Mediterranean coast, the whole of Africa may be 
disregarded, as contributing nothing to human progress. So 
with ail Polynesia ; with the vast territory of Northern Asia ; 
and with the continent of America, until by a transfer of lan- 
guages and institutions it became a “second Europe.” A geo- 
graphical chart of civilization is accordingly drawn by him 
in a belt of country of considerable though disproportionate 
width, from the south-east of Asia to the north-western 
extremity of Europe — presenting a chain of fifteen historical 
lands, whose records, classified in their respective periods, will 
afford a continuous history of the race from primitive antiquity 
to the present time.# 


* The Philosophy of History, by Frederick Schiegel, Bohn’s Ed.; pp. 108 — 114. 


[ 4 1 

It would open a wide field of speculation to inquire how far 
these historic nations have been distinguished by characteristic 
traits, imparting a strict individuality to each. For example, 
whether in the panorama of Asiatic history, its leading coun- 
tries, such as China, India, and Persia, would present to the eye 
of an observer a separate historical physiognomy, marked by 
such peculiarities of feature and expression that no transposi- 
tion of them upon the canvass would blend them as historic 
personages in a confused and motley picture ? Or, as the Gulf 
Stream throws its waters in a separate current far into the 
Atlantic waste, whether the separate channels of English, 
French, German, and Italian history can be as distinctly traced 
in the wide sea of European politics and civilization ? Re- 
garding all history as a unit — not the mere aggregation of sin- 
gle events bound up in chronology — but as a concrete whole, 
preserving, like the human body, its organization amidst the 
fluctuation and change to which it is subject ; whether it is 
possible to specify the individual contributions made by these 
respective historic nations to that civilization which is the joint 
product of them all ? 

A lively French writer — whose speculations I have been 
permitted to peruse only in a partial translation in one of our 
leading Quarterlies — undertakes to show that each of the three 
divisions into which the human family was separated after the 
Flood, has been occupied with a distinct mission through the 
entire tract of their history. Thus, the race of Snem was 
providentially selected as the channel for transmitting religion 
and worship ; and in this sacerdotal mission all its branches 
have consciously or unconsciously embarked. Through two 
thousand years the Hebrews were the chosen depositaries of 
an inspired faith. For the cultivation of this, they were re- 
manded to the contemplation and quietude of pastoral life ; 
were enclosed as in a park in the centre of the world, — in a 
land where the forms of nature presented their thoughts with 


[ 5 ] 


a poetic dress ; and were endowed with a language peculiarly 
fitted for the utterance of deep religious emotion. So too the 
Arabians, of the same stock, in a position likewise insulated 
and central, gave birth in later times to the most stupendous 
religious imposture the world has ever known. Blindly occu- 
pied with what may be termed their Shemitic function, they 
devised a religion without a mystery and without a sacrifice : 
and a religious enthusiasm transformed into sanguinary fanat- 
icism has given form and color to Arabian history through 
twelve centuries, since the Hegira. 

Japhet and his race — to condense still further the suggestions 
of Mons. Rougemont — seem designated to be the organ of 
human civilization, in cultivating the intellectual powers. 
Dividing historically into two great branches, the Japhetic 
whites, spreading over the diversified continent of Europe, 
through a protracted discipline develope the higher powers of 
the soul in politics, jurisprudence, science, and art: while the 
Asiatic Japhetites dispersed over a more monotonous continent, 
embark in those pursuits of industry fitted to the lower capaci- 
ties of our nature. 

The descendants of Ham, on the contrary, in whom the sen- 
sual and corporeal appetites predominate, are driven like an 
infected race beyond the deserts of Sahara, where under a 
glowing sky nature harmonizes with their brutal and savage 
disposition.^ 

If we prefer to descend from these wider generalizations to 
the contemplation of individual states, no philosophic reader 
can hesitate in determining the mission of ancient Greece, or 
in recognizing her influence upon the culture and progress of 
mankind. She was placed by God in the midst of the three 


* The above paragraphs are a condensation from memory of an article to be 
found in an old number of the Bibliotheca Sacra. Not being in possession of it, 
however, the language could only be partially recalled, so that it could not be spe- 
cifically quoted. 




old divisions of the earth, to educate and refine the world. In 
the speculations of philosophy and in the cultivation of the arts, 
in whatever is most; profound in thought or beautiful in senti- 
ment, the creations of her genius are the accepted models to 
be imitated, but never surpassed. Her language, the most rich 
and harmonious ever spoken by man, is the repository of all the 
science and learning of the past, and has been consecrated by 
God for conveying the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith. 
Achieving for antiquity the work which in modern times Pro- 
vidence has more sparingly distributed between Italy, Germany, 
and France, we feel that to extinguish Greece would simply be 
to quench that civilization which now bathes the world in its 
splendor. 

Rome also accomplished her mission in the practical, not less 
important than that of Greece in the aesthetic. She conquered 
the world with her legions, only to legislate for it through her 
statesmen and jurists. She evolved the idea of the State ; and 
wrought out a system of jurisprudence which, equally with the 
philosophy of Greece, has become the common heritage of man. 

Nor is it more difficult to trace the characteristic differences 
of modern nations. Germany is the land of speculation 
and intellectual activity. England, like ancient Rome, is the 
modern representative of state policy, working still upon the 
old problems of government and law. France excels in science 
and the culture of society ; and Italy, through her elegant arts, 
is still the home of beauty and the ideal. Even those barbar- 
ous tribes, which from their nomadic life take no rank in the 
scale of nations, seem to have been providentially reserved to 
recruit the wasted energies of decaying civilization. Bursting 
from the recesses of their gloomy forests, or pouring like an 
avalanche from their mountain cliffs, they invigorate the races 
which for a time they overwhelm. Christianity, for instance, 
which did not regenerate currupt and stubborn pagan Rome, 
easily seized upon the free and pliant elements of invading 


Saxon and Gothic hordes; and by the aid of these transformed 
Europe, laying the foundation of her present mighty com- 
monwealth of nations. 

In this comprehensive view, history becomes an organic 
whole, whose different members, knit together by joints and 
bands, grow with a common growth and are instinct with a 
common life. But as all members in the body have not the 
same office, so every truly historic people is marked by its own 
characteristic traits ; and will contribute its quota to complete 
that civilization which is the joint product and property of them 
all. 

But, gentlemen of the Phi-Mu and Eunomian Societies, I 
have not raised these questions with the design of enticing you 
into the labyrinth of historical research. The limits of a brief 
address will not allow even a coarse profile to be drawn of all 
human history. And were it practicable, its mere coast-line of 
projecting headlands and receding bays, would reveal nothing 
to you of the landscape and scenery which would charm the 
eye of an explorer. I wish simply to indicate the steps by 
which I have ascended to the subject which I now propose to 
lay before you: a subject sufficiently practical to meet the 
demands of this popular occasion. Are we, in the sense already 
described, a historic people ? or shall we permit Schlegel and 
other writers of the philosophy of history, to classify us as “ a 
remote dependency, the mere continuation of old Europe on the 
other side of the Atlantic?” If we may justly claim an in- 
dependent rank in the historic scale, what are the traits impres- 
sing us with the stamp of individuality ? What great social 
and political problems are given us to be solved under con- 
ditions wffiich meet in the fortunes of no other people? And 
what rank shall we hereafter occupy in the great temple of 
history, when its topstone shall be laid, and the nations of the 
earth meet in one mighty orchestra to swell the anthem of 
praise to Him who shall then unfold the finished scheme of 
Providence ? 


The want of a public national character has been too 
rashly charged upon us by those who overlook the peculiar 
circumstances under which our national career was begun. 
It is forgotten by many that we entered upon the political 
race already in possession of a high civilization, the slow 
accretion of past ages, the accumulated experience of other 
races ; a civilization too stubborn to be worked over or essen- 
tially modified, the changes in which are inappreciable except 
through a very long tract of time. It has not been considered 
that our population is drawn from no single source, but is 
rather the confluence of all the tribes and tongues of Europe, 
and cannot therefore be expected to present the marked pecu- 
liarities of a strictly individual race ; that this eclectic popula- 
tion is daily recruited by the accession of new immigrants, 
with all their traditional opinions and usages — that hitherto it 
has been diffused thinly in groups over a vast continent, never 
yet compacted by outside pressure, nor subjected to any disci- 
pline, severe enough to render it homologous. Yet in the face 
of all these admissions, the charge itself may be denied as not 
true, certainly to the extent alleged. Even under these disad- 
vantages, a wise discrimination will discover traits which de- 
serve to be considered national and distinctive. To the innate 
toughness bequeathed us by our Saxon ancestry, and to the 
wise conservatism derived from our more immediate English 
origin, we have added an independence which enters freely 
upon untried paths, guided neither by prescription nor autho- 
rity. With these have been united a sturdy self-reliance, which 
pauses at no obstacles, and a heroic courage which estimates 
no dangers. The practical genius, too, of the American people 
will arrest the attention of all who attempt the analysis of their 
character : a practicalness rendered intense by the necessity of 
subduing a savage continent, and of developing its hidden 
resources ; which may sometimes have judged by a false stand- 
ard of what is substantial and true, which perhaps has impeded 


. 19 ] 

our refinement in culture and embellishment in art, and which 
often in the individual degenerates into the coarseness of ava- 
rice and the idolatry of wealth : but which, as a national trait, 
spurns at theory and tramples upon speculation, when neither 
can be embodied in some useful and tangible result. By its 
quiet and silent force, it has however built a mighty empire in 
the bosom of a once unbroken wilderness — it has substituted 
commerce for conquest, and supplanted the sword and spear of 
the warrior by the plow and the axe of the colonist. It has 
achieved wonders more strange and romantic than are to be 
found in Eastern story, so that its facts impress the imagination 
equally with the gorgeous fictions of the Arabian Nights. 
Despite, too, the faithlessness to covenants which, in some por- 
tions of our confederacy, mars the record of passing events, I 
must add the finishing touch to this national portrait in that 
sublime subjection to law and love of order, which has ever 
characterized the American people. Indeed this is but the 
form in which is exhibited the proper self-respect of a people, 
who are conscious that the laws which they obey emanate from 
their own sovereign will ; and with whom insubordination 
would only be the abdication of their own supremacy. 

It is conceded that none of these attributes are purely origi- 
nal, as from the causes already mentioned they cannot be. A 
people so entirely composite as the American, can be expected 
only to reflect the traits which distinguish its constituent parts. 
Indeed the elements of character are too few in number to allow 
any other originality than that which arises from varied combi- 
nation and the new direction imparted by altered circumstances. 
As in the human face the features are few, yet the artist’s 
pencil reveals how the addition of a hair line, or the variation 
of the smallest angle, will give new expression to the whole : or 
as the elements in nature are exceedingly limited, yet the differ- 
ent proportions in which they are combined give us the endless 

variety of the physical universe : — so the traits which enter into 

2 


[ 10 ] 

what we call character, both in the individual and in the nation, 
may be mingled in such diverse proportions and receive by 
outward causes so many directions, as to create distinctly indi- 
vidual personages who form new features in the world’s history. 

These preliminary suggestions need not be expanded. — 
American character finds its best exposition in American history. 
Let the caviller closely connect in his own thoughts the era of 
1620 with that of 1776, the feeble beginnings of the one with the 
heroic achievements of the other, and trace the vast expansion 
of less than a century later. The scepticism which can resist 
the evidence of such a comparison would scarcely be satisfied 
with apologetic discourse and would deny a forceful and mas- 
sive character to any people beneath the sun. But whether we 
are entitled to the consideration of a truly historic race will 
best be determined by the political problems, upon the solution 
of which our very destiny depends. The problems of all history, 
however difficult, are fortunately for mankind few in number. 
They may be reduced to four : the first political, touching per- 
sonal freedom and national independence ; the second, ecclesi- 
astic, touching the conservation of religion ; the third, intellec- 
tual , touching the whole education of a people : and the fourth, 
economic , touching the adjustments of the entire social scale. 
Around these four centres all the great movements in history 
will be found to sweep in constant and fearful eddies. Will it 
shock your faith, if I add that old as the world now is, — its his- 
tory teeming throughout with political experiments, — notone of 
these problems has yet been worked out to its final result : and 
the nearest approximation to a satisfactory solution is that 
afforded in the history of our our country ? Never, since 
the institution of civil magistracy in the death-penalty com- 
manded to Noah, has a nation existed upon the face of the globe, 
under conditions so favorable for working out the problems of 
the historic calculus and giving its grand equation to the world. 
Never did a people so start exactly from the point of all past 


1 11 ] 


human experience, yet so completely set loose from the trammels 
of old political formulas. Never was a population so peculiarly 
sifted out as the pure grain, and sown over a domain so ample 
and so exclusively its own. The future only will disclose 
whether we are to rejoice in the glory of complete success, or 
be covered with the shame of ignominious failure. Permit me 
now, gentlemen, to pass rapidly in review the four problems 
already named and to show how they form the four sides of the 
square upon which all American history is to be built. 

I. It is remitted then to us to prove , upon the largest scale , 
the possibility of self government* In the construction of all 
governments the aim is to secure the vigor necessary for 
protection, and to restrain as little as possible the liberty of 
the individual. In the progress from the simplicity of patri- 
archal times, the pursuits of men become more diversified and 
the interests of society correspondingly more complex. Power 
must accordingly be lodged somewhere to restrain the disorders 
arising within a community from the continual play of indi- 
vidual selfishness and passion. Since, too, the human race is 
broken up into distinct communities, which can never be united 
under one jurisdiction, power must reside somewhere to repel 
foreign aggression. Yet all experience has shown that the 
power which is created for purposes of protection tends, by 
usurpation and abuse, to become itself an instrument of oppres- 
sion: and those nations which now rejoice in constitutional 
governments have attained to them only through a long and 
bitter struggle between Prerogative on the one hand and 
Privilege on the other. It would seem, however, upon the bare 
statement, that a government based upon the Democratic idea 
would necessarily be the most free : that is to say, a government 
where the sovereignty resides in the people — where the ruler is 
only a magistrate, holding his power by the suffrages of the 
governed, and periodically remitting his trust to the hands from 
whom it was first received. It surely is competent in such a 


government to infuse sufficient vigor into all its departments — 
legislative, judicial, and executive, to afford protection to the 
subject; and at the same time, by a wise system of checks, by 
means of a written constitution, and especially by limiting the 
term of office and holding periodically all parties to a rigid 
account, so to define and limit power that it shall not impinge 
upon individual freedom. The construction of such a govern- 
ment was the work undertaken by our forefathers upon the 
rupture with the mother country ; and it is instructive to ob- 
serve how Providence had so shaped the conditions of things 
that no other experiment remained to them. Mr. Macaulay has 
finely described the conservative spirit of the English people, 
that “ distaste for whatever is abstract in political science,” which 
leads them to eschew all legislation in thesi , and always to deal 
with the concrete and the real.# The history of the American 
revolution affords a striking illustration of the same spirit in 
their descendants on this side of the Atlantic. The statesmen 
of 1776 were no visionary constitution-makers, like those of 
the present day who attempt to fit capricious France to a poli- 
tical costume ; nor were they restless radicals, pulling down 
existing institutions to make room for model governments of 
their own invention. They fought not for abstract rights, which 
they claimed as men; but for chartered rights, which they 
claimed as Englishmen. Monarchy was not so much repudi- 


* The passage referred to is as follows : « In the English legislature the practical 
element has always predominated over the speculative. To think nothing of sym- 
etry, and much of convenience ; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is 
an anomaly ; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt ; never to 
innovate except so far as to get rid of the grievance ; never to lay down any 
proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to 
provide : these are the rules which from the age of John to the age of Victoria 
generally guided the deliberations of our two hundred and fifty parliaments. Our 
national distaste for whatever is abstract in political science amounts undoubtedly 
to a fault ; yet it is perhaps a fault on the right side. That we have been far too 
slow to improve our laws must be admitted. But though in other countries there 
may have occasionally been more rapid progress, it would not be easy to name any 
other country in which there has been so little retrogression.” History of England 
vol. 3d, pp. 67-68, Boston edition. 


ated, as liberty was sought : and if republicanism came forth 
as the result of the struggle, it was because divine Providence 
had ordained that a palpable advance should thus be made in 
the progress of mankind to freedom. If any branch of the 
royal family had resided upon these shores and had sympa- 
thized with the passionate struggle of a young nation to be 
both great and free, the conservative spirit of our forefathers 
would doubtless have led to the establishment of monarchy 
upon this continent. There was not, however, even a tilled 
class, having the prestige of nobility and rank, from which a 
king could be chosen. In all countries where monarchy exists, 
the wide interval between the commonalty and the throne must 
be filled with an intermediate class, which shall render the 
ascent less abrupt and precipitous ; and in the absence of this 
class, it was simply impossible to lift a single family from the 
uniform level of society to a permanent presidency over the 
rest. All these conditions of monarchy failing, the framers of 
our government showed their practical wisdom in boldly 
throwing aside what no conservatism could retain. They 
dwelt however too much in the light of the past to inaugurate 
a system of pure democracy. Herodotus, I believe it is, said 
long ago, that democracy becomes impracticable as soon as the 
population swells beyond five thousand. Through dissension 
and anarchy it is either speedily disintegrated, or reacts into 
military despotism. Certainly, a pure democracy projected 
upon the scale of our own country would have foundered 
almost as soon as launched, in the first political crisis. This 
accordingly was not attempted. The thirteen colonies being 
already furnished with the machinery of government, in their 
judiciary and domestic legislature, modelled somewhat after the 
English parliament, were simply united in a federal republic, 
with a written constitution strictly defining the trusts delegated 
to their common agent, and with all those checks and balances 
found in two deliberative chambers, the presidential veto, and 
State sovereignty. 


This is not the occasion for minutely dissecting the mechan- 
ism of our government, nor am I the best expositor of its prin- 
ciples. It is enough to say that, under republican forms, this 
government of the people, covers now an area of more than 
three millions of square miles, nearly twice the expansion of 
the Roman [empire in the days of Trajan and the Antonines. 
The population which was at first scattered in hamlets upon the 
margin of the Atlantic, soon overtook the frowning barrier of 
the Alleghanies. From that point the Mississippi appeared like 
a silver thread just beneath the distant horizon, which now is 
recognized as digging a great trough in the very middle of the 
continent. The swelling human tide poured onward ; and as 
we looked to see it surge and break at the foot of the Rocky 
mountains, by a mighty providential impulse it has overleaped 
this last barrier of nature, and pauses only where the setting sun 
hides his disk in the waters of another ocean. Even as I speak, 
this empire of a free self-governed people lifts its battlements 
in the front of Asia, as not long ago it put on its crown in 
the face of indignant and astonished Europe. The proud bird 
which bears our escutcheon in his beak, flaunts it over one 
quarter of the globe ; as poising upon the highest peak of the 
Rocky range, he dips one wing in the Atlantic and the other in 
the Pacific, across the breadth of a continent. 

I do but give utterance to an American thought, when I say 
that no other government than that of the people themselves is 
at all possible with us. A lapse into monarchy can only hap- 
pen through the judicial displeasure of God ; like ancient 
Israel, of whom it is said, “ He gave them a king in his anger.” 
The future history of this continent is wrapt up in the success- 
ful issue of this mighty experiment of self-government. If it 
fails, we must go “ slouching down upon the wrong side of our 
crisis” into inextricable barbarism and ruin. The only point 
open to debate, is the scale upon which we shall succeed in 
working out this momentous problem. Hitherto the national 


sentiment as a principle of cohesion, has been stronger than the 
combined elements of explosion. But whether the public vir- 
tue shall be sufficient to temper the violence of party, to restrain 
the collisions of sectional interests, and to check the rage of a 
frantic fanaticism ; and above all, whether the moral power of 
this government shall be able to mould the countries which at 
no distant day it must either absorb or take under the wing of 
its protection, so as to assimilate them with their foreign insti- 
tutions to itself; these are the unknown terms in the historic 
equation, upon which its final solution depends. But, if under 
adverse influences, this confederacy should be rent into sec- 
tions, each large enough to make ^n empire as great as the 
proudest of ancient or modem times, the American principle 
of self-government by the people must still in these segments 
be applied ; so that the problem itself shall only be affected in 
the grandeur of the scale upon which it shall be wrought out. 
The philosophic coolness with which this alternative is stated, 
will not, I trust, be construed into indifference as to the choice 
which should be made. Apart from the dread of innovation, 
and the imminent peril attending the framing of new constitu- 
tions in an age so radical as the present — apart from the fact 
that the inheritance we have in the glory of the past, is a joint 
inheritance, incapable of partition and distribution, no patriot 
or philanthropist but must desire this experiment of self-govern- 
ment to be achieved precisely under the conditions under 
which it was inaugurated. My own faith is not weakened in 
the stability of our political fabric. The rapid extension of 
our territory does not necessarily forebode ultimate ruin ; since 
by it may be created new interests securing by compromise the 
good of the whole against the blind selfishness of section: just 
as the weight of the superstructure only binds more firmly the 
arch by . which it is supported. The agitations and strifes 
through which we are passing do not appal me; for no opera- 
tive principle in society was ever elaborated but in “the 


working-house and forge” of human conflict and passion. 
In all this we are simply undergoing that discipline of proba- 
tion necessary for the working out abstract principles into 
potential and historic facts. There is moreover a wonderful 
elasticity in every good government, by which it springs back 
from the constraint of temporary pressure. It may come once 
and again to the verge of dissolution, and by its own instinct 
of self-preservation recoil from the fatal plunge into the boil- 
ing abyss below. Certainly, the political crisis through which 
we have hitherto passed have only served to give a practical 
determination of great political principles. Though it may 
seem a paradox, all constitutional governments are the more 
secure for the very ease with which they may be shaken and 
convulsed ; like the famous hanging rock of which I have 
somewhere read, so exactly balanced upon its own centre of 
gravity, that whilst it trembles beneath the finger of a child, it 
cannot be dislodged by the violence of the tornado, or through 
the heavings of an earthquake. If, a century hence, this soil 
should be pressed by a hundred millions of freemen, dwelling 
in their respective tribes, Ephraim not vexing Judah, nor Judah 
Ephraim, and adjusting all their differences in one august na- 
tional council ; the perpetuation of such a government upon 
this scale of grandeur, would be a monument to our praise 
beyond all the pyramids, the statues and obelisks which attest 
the heroism of other races. The historic mission of this coun- 
try is the erection of such a shaft, piercing upward to the very 
stars, having a whole continent for its pedestal, enduring as 
the granite beneath our mountains, and bearing the prayer of 
a world, in its simple but sublime inscription, esto perpetua, 

II. The second experiment in American history, involving 
the problem Ecclesiastic, has been carried to a triumphant issue 
in the separation of the Church from the State. These two com- 
munities are so distinct in their ends, which they achieve by 
instruments so diverse, that the wonder is how they were ever 


[ 17 ] 

confounded or commingled. Yet in almost all periods of time, 
and in all lands, the welfare of society has been supposed to 
depend upon an alliance between them. Bishop Warburton 
may be selected as the expositor of the theory which has 
obtained greatest currency in relation to this subject : that both 
are independent and sovereign spcieties, proposing different 
ends and hence not clashing even though the same persons are 
under the jurisdiction of both; that civil society labors under 
certain defects in attaining its ends, because it can only restrain 
from open transgression, because it cannot enforce the duties of 
imperfect obligation, and because it often inflames the appetites 
it proposes to correct ; that religion having the sanction of re- 
wards, while civil government has only that of punishments, ex- 
actly supplies ihese defects, and so the church becomes necessary 
as the complement of the state. A union is therefore formed for 
their mutual benefit, in which the state pledges itself to protect, 
endow, and extend the church, and the church to lend her whole 
influence to the state. The reciprocal concessions are that the 
church resigns her supremacy by constituting the civil magis- 
trate her earthly head and by submitting her laws to the state’s 
approval ; and the state, in compensation, gives to the church a 
coercive power for the reformation of manners, and secures her 
a seat and representation in the national council. From imme- 
morial antiquity this union has subsisted, justified sometimes 
by one theory, and sometimes by another. In the Jewish theo- 
cracy, of course, the state existed for the church, and was simply 
the ark which enshrined it. The founder of Christianity, it is 
true, distinctly proclaimed his kingdom to be not of this world, 
and uttered the words of divorce between them, when he said, 
“ render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God 
the things which are God’s.” Certain it is that during three 
centuries the church not only sustained herself separately 
from the state, but sustained herself against the whole power 
of the latter ; and was most characterized by vigor and expan- 
sion during this very period when she was known as “ ecclesia 

3 


[ 18 ] 

pressaP Yet no sooner did she come to empire through the 
conversion of Constantine than the fatal union was again formed 
with the state, and has been perpetuated ever since with all 
its pernicious results. In everyone of the countries of Europe, 
as they emerged from the chaos of Gothic barbarism, the social 
fabric was constructed upon the consolidation of the two. The 
Reformation in the sixteenth century, which brought life and 
purity again to the church, brought no repudiation of this un- 
natural alliance ; which rather found a home in all the constitu- 
tions political and religious which it produced. Within the 
last one thousand years, since the formation of Charlemagne’s 
empire, it has not been possible in any one country upon the 
globe to attempt the separation of the two. The political and 
ecclesiastical threads have been so thoroughly interwoven, that 
the elimination of either would have involved the destruction 
of the entire tissue. The construction of our own government 
persented the first occasion in modern history for separating 
functions that are really so diverse ; for which reason I have 
ventured to assign it as one of the great problems given us to 
solve for the benefit of mankind. Precisely by the same neces- 
sity which caused monarchy with an hereditary nobility to 
resign to primitive republicanism, did the established church 
likewise disappear. Before a church can be established by law, 
it must embrace the overwhelming majority of the population ; 
it must be cherished with their most pleasing associations; it 
must enjoy the prestige of long antiquity. At the period of the 
Revolution, no one church possessed any of these requisites. 
Dissent had previously won its way in those countries from 
which our population was mainly supplied ; and the churches, 
which had grown up under the frown of existing establishments, 
were transplanted here side by side. There was clearly the 
same impossibility, under existing circumstances, that any one 
of these should take precedence of the rest so as to be estab- 
lished by law, as that a single family should achieve and entail 
a perpetual dictatorship. There was no alternative but to throw 


off all alike from any connection with the state, that no longer 
sucking the breasts of kings, they should live and grow by their 
inherent vitality. Our ancestors were wise enough to see at a 
glance the peculiarity of their position, to waive instantly all 
prejudices arising from education and habit, and to seize the 
true idea which alone could be realized. The question of an 
established church, like that of a monarchical government, was 
decided by them not upon abstract principles, but for political 
reasons, which nevertheless impelled them in the right direction. 

We are so familiar with the peaceful operation of both in 
their respective spheres, as perhaps not duly to appreciate the 
wisdom and independence exhibited in initiating this experi- 
ment against the common judgment of mankind ; and perhaps 
to overlook the glory which attaches to American history in the 
brilliant success with which it has been crowned. Probably 
there is not one American heart, amidst all the clashings of 
party politics, and the jarring of denominational strifes, that 
would tolerate the thought of their re-union. During eighty 
years the state has been free from all those perplexities which 
arise from its complication with the spiritual power; and the 
church unfettered by political intrigue, has kept pace with our 
spreading population, covering the land with the institutions of 
Christianity, and has exhibited in her foreign work the true 
aggressive spirit of the gospel more than in any period since 
the apostolic. When however in these days we see the pulpit, 
which, like the mercy-seat above, should be the place where 
men meet for reconciliation and peace, converted into a politi- 
cal rostrum, and the ambassadors of heaven degraded into 
jobbing politicians, it is a melancholy illustration how the 
secret principle of error often survives the destruction of its 
embodied form. Distinctly as we have in theory repudiated 
the union of church and state, we have yet to unlearn some- 
what more the fallacies of former centuries. It only remains 
to draw forth the pious benevolence of the church, and to ren- 
der voluntaryism more entirely competent to its high trusts, in 


[ 20 ] 

order to carry the argument forward to complete demonstration, 
and to crown our history with the glory it will shed upon it. 

III. The third, or Educational problem, I approach with 
diffidence in the presence of so many who are charged with 
the management of this great interest. The crude suggestions 
of the speaker will however, I doubt not, be received as kindly as 
they are modestly ventured. It would be superfluous to argue 
that a government like ours, must rest at last upon the intelli- 
gence and virtue of the people. As they form the ultimate 
tribunal before which all questions must be submitted, their 
will must be enlightened ; or like the prophet-judge of old, they 
will blindly lay hold upon the pillars of their liberty, and bury 
themselves beneath the ruins of their own political temple. 

In all free governments a system of oral instruction obtains, 
the value of which to the masses is apt to be depreciated in an 
age of scholastic culture like the present. Yet it was precisely 
under this training the greatest nations of antiquity reached the 
proud pre-eminence we are compelled to assign to them. Un- 
der certain conditions, with a homogeneous people crowded 
upon a small territory, and with interests thoroughly inter- 
woven, it is peculiarly effective in creating a public sentiment, 
and forming a national taste. Thus in old Greece, while 
philosophers distilled their wisdom in golden proverbs to the 
select few of the Academy, the “ great commons ” received a 
substantive education from other teachers and through other 
sources. The fanes and temples which crowned every hill-top 
in their beautiful land — the popular myths associated with 
every stream and lake and forest-glade — the statues of their 
illustrious dead — the battle plains consecrated by the blood of 
the martyrs of freedom — the Agora in which they wrangled — 
the Bema from which orators thundered forth such matchless 
eloquence — the recitations and poems chaunted at the national 
games and festivals, creating the very taste to whose criticism 
they seemed to bow : these were the methods of popular edu- 
cation under which Greece rose to the highest pitch of intel- 


[ 21 J 

lectual greatness, and became “ the mother of eloquence and 
the arts.” 

The political training of our own people is accomplished by 
very similar agencies. The frequent recurrence of elections 
necessitates the continual statement and discussion of political 
principles before the whole constituency of the country. As 
freedom of opinion gives rise to parties, great political issues 
are commingled with personal considerations in selecting be- 
tween candidates for popular favor ; while every presidential 
canvass draws the whole population into the vortex of political 
discussion, in determining the policy and creed of each suc- 
ceeding administration. Nothing is done in a corner. The 
official acts of every magistrate, from the highest to the low- 
est — the proceedings of all our legislatures, domestic and 
national, are subjected to critical inspection — and the principles 
of every political party are perpetually sifted and analyzed. 
Through continual harangues by orators at the hustings, and by 
discussions in their primary assemblies — to say nothing of the 
influence of the newspaper press, which has become a recog- 
nized estate, or power in the realm — the work of indoc- 
trination is carried forward until, ignorant of whatever else, our 
people are singularly enlightened upon political subjects ; and 
are thus prepared for that substantial share which they have in 
the administration of the government. 

In like manner, the importance of our whole judicial system 
as an educational institute should not be overlooked. This in- 
fluence may not be so distinctly felt in cities, where men con- 
tinually educate each other through the competitions and inter- 
lacings of business ; but in the rural districts our courts of 
justice become great schools for the education of the masses in 
the most valuable species of knowledge. All the principles of 
equity and law — the immutable distinctions of right and wrong 
— the fundamental rules of human society — the disorganizing 
tendency of all. sin — even the superior sanctions of conscience 
and religion : these great themes are continually discussed, and 


[ 22 ] 

discussed in their practical and immediate relations before the 
multitude, composed of clients, witnesses, and jurors, and the 
still more crowded lobby of curious and interested listeners. 

The legal profession constitutes thus a priesthood, ministering 
in the temples of justice, whose influence is most potential in 
forming the character of the people ; to such an extent indeed, 
that the character of the bar being given, we may almost pre- 
cisely determine the average virtue and intelligence of the 
community within whose precincts they officiate. It is by 
virtue of this moral and intellectual influence that it becomes 
in a country like ours, the open avenue of political and civil 
preferment; and because of this, as well as because of the 
sacred functions to which it is ordained, it is the noblest voca- 
tion merely earthly to which an ambitious youth may aspire. 

But the term education must be taken in its more modern 
and restricted sense ; denoting not so much the varied influences 
by which the character of a people is formed, as that scholastic 
training by which our youth are fitted for their different positions 
in life. Valuable as may be that oral instruction of which I have 
spoken, it yields in efficiency to the method which the art of 
printing and the multiplication of books have introduced ; by 
which through a prescribed curriculum of study, the intellectual 
powers are more certainly developed, and knowledge is ren- 
dered more accurate and fixed. The instrumental agencies 
however, by which this education is accomplished, will of 
course be diverse in different lands, according to the tempera- 
ment of the people, the genius of their institutions, and the 
peculiar cirumstances that surround them. No mistake can be 
more fatal than the attempt to transfer bodily the educational 
methods of one country to another, without those modifications 
which a practical wisdom would suggest. In the small and 
aristocratic island of Great Britain, for instance, two imperial 
universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford, may control its 
educational interests. But it were simply absurd to suppose 
that any two similar institutions, however magnificent, can cast 


their shadow over this broad land. Admire too, as we may, 
the gymnasia and universities of Germany, or the general 
educational arrangements of Prussia, neither the one nor the 
other is sufficiently adapted to the genius and circumstances of 
our people, to be accepted without material changes. It ap- 
pears to me that unconsciously, perhaps, we have been steadily 
working out a system of education stamped with all the fea- 
tures of the American character. With a population distributed 
over a wide area ; broken up moreover, as this population is 
into many separate, and to some extent, independent communi- 
ties ; with different social interests predominant in different 
sections of the land : from these and other causes, which cannot 
now be even suggested, the tendency to centralism in education 
is completely counteracted. Whether we look at the prepara- 
tory training of undergraduates, or at the schools of professional 
culture in theology, medicine, and law, the jealous indepen- 
dence of the American people too obviously forbids that the 
mind of the country shall be cast in any single mould. The 
complaint therefore against the multiplication of seminaries of 
learning is sheer waste of breath ; as it is the result of causes 
that operate with all the silent efficiency of the occult forces 
of nature herself. The problem with us is unquestionably to 
carry education, and that of a somewhat high grade, as near as 
possible to every hamlet and home in the land. The difficul- 
ties in its achievement are not inconsiderable. Although to no 
public enterprize is the wealth of our people more freely con- 
secrated than to this, it is no small effort to accomplish at once 
the endowment of a large number of institutions rising up 
simultaneously for support. The demand, too, which these 
institutions suddenly create for a large number of experienced 
and competent instructors, is more than can easily be met from 
a class so small as the literary class still remains. With the 
attractions of wealth afforded by the agriculture, commerce, 
and manufactures of the country drawing in the one direction, 
and the political prizes attracting the ambitious in the other, 


the number is exceedingly limited of those who pursue letters 
from a pure and simple love of learning. Yet with all these 
difficulties it has been distinctly assumed by our own people to 
distribute the facilities of a solid education over the whole land. 

The temporary result of this system, it cannot be disguised, 
is the depression of the tone of education ; or to speak with 
more precision, it retards its elevation to that pitch which all 
lovers of true learning ardently desire. It requires an immense 
force silently exerted through ages to lift the bed of the entire 
ocean and roll its waters into other basins : so time, with com- 
bined and sustained effort, can alone raise such a diffused 
education to the highest summit-level. The fact itself should 
not however be blinked, since its recognition must antedate all 
measures to repair the defect. The point then to be imme- 
diately compassed, is to superinduce upon our present system of 
general education a method by which those of a higher order of 
mind and of a sufficient opportunity may be conducted through 
the higher regions of philosophy, science, and literature. The 
alternative which has hitherto suggested itself to me, was either 
to found a very limited number of institutions rising a grade 
above our existing colleges, in which all branches of learning 
should be taught in their highest forms ; admission into which 
should be afforded only to those who have finished the cur- 
riculum of study of which a college diploma is regarded the 
voucher: or else, to throw back into the academy most of 
those studies pursued in the first two years of a college 
course, thus relieving those institutions of the whole process 
of drill to which they are now condemned. It would be easy 
in that case to fill up the term of four years with those 
higher studies necessary for the production of the noblest style 
of scholars. Whilst in the act of framing these suggestions 
I have been pleased to find another method proposed by one 
who is practically conversant with the whole subject of educa- 
tion which he elaborately discusses in a letter addressed to the 


Directors of the University over which he so ably presides.# 
It is to separate the studies with which a college course is now 
overburdened into two grand divisions : the first embracing 
those studies which, according to the original idea of college 
education, are intended to train and develope the intellectual 
powers, and which should admit to the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts ; and the second, all those studies which advancing 
science has of late so abundantly furnished, which shall afford 
the material of knowledge, and which after a second course 
shall admit to the second degree of Master of Arts. This 
method appears to me, upon the first glance, more feasible 
than any other, because more in harmony with the general 
principles underlying the whole system of American educa- 
tion ; and because it is capable of immediate application in 
all existing institutions. But whether this method shall be 
generally accepted, or some other be devised, it is gratifying 
to know that practical minds are working out the problem of 
American education in this direction, that it may not longer 
present the appearance of a truncated cone. But whilst sup- 
plying the apex that is wanting, it is necessary to work also 
at the base of the pyramid. A system of general education 
should be so graduated as to embrace the lowest form of 
society as well as the highest. Perhaps it has been the fault 
of our system that it has attempted to place our whole people 
upon one absolute level; disregarding the stubborn fact that 
while society continues it must be separated into grades. 
Multitudes can never command the leisure for extended men- 
tal culture, who yet require an elementary training to fit them 
for the practical duties of life, and to rescue them from the 
power of base and designing demagogues. It is not proposed 
of course, to drive the partitions of caste through the commu- 
nity, than which nothing can be more repulsive to the com- 

* See the recent letter of Frederick A. P. Barnard, LL. D., President of the 
University of Mississippi, addressed to the Board of Trustees of that Institution. 


mon sentiment of our people, and opposed to the very character 
of our civilization. It will always be possible for individuals, 
with industry and opportunity, to rise by the aid of the lower 
to the enjoyment of the higher grades of culture. But it may 
be questioned whether the happiness or usefulness of men is 
promoted by educating them above the sphere in which they 
must providentially live : and whether the very attempt to 
educate all too high does not in effect deny any education 
to large masses, who thus fail in the first step in the ascent 
to equality with others. Upon the State, as the common mother, 
it most devolves to apply such a system of common school 
education — but it devolves upon all the friends of true learning 
to mature such a graduated scheme as here suggested : the 
result of which shall be that not one freeman in this broad 
land shall be debarred the right to place his feet upon the 
ladder whose successive rounds may conduct him to the 
highest table-land of knowledge — or failing in this, shall at 
least prepare him to fill with propriety and honor the humbler 
sphere in which he is content to move. 

JV. The fourth, or economic, problem I had intended to dis- 
cuss far more elaborately than I now find space to do. I must 
pass with the same rapid and suggestive touches over this as 
over the preceding topics, without an effort to take the sound- 
ings of the great deep over which we are coasting. 

The familiar terms, capital and labor, express the two oppo- 
site poles, upon the adjustment of which the entire harmony of 
society depends. As in the material world, the serenity of the 
atmosphere depends upon the equilibrium of the two electri- 
cities, upon the disturbance of which storm and tempest, 
hail, thunder and lightning, the tornado and whirlwind ensue ; 
so in the social world, insurrection and mutiny, anarchy and 
civil war result as soon as the antagonism is brought out be- 
tween these two. For they are really antagonistic. Capital 
seeks to increase its profits by exacting labor at the lowest 
wages : labor, on the other hand, in self-defense seeks from 


capital the largest remuneration for the smallest services. Thus 
the two are perpetually grinding against each other, like the 
upper and the nether millstones. You have only to suppose a 
condition of society, nearly approximated in some portions of 
the world, in which labor shall stretch its brawny limbs upon 
the rack to the limit of endurance without obtaining the means 
of subsistence, and the crisis in this great problem is reached. 
All appeals to the prudence and fears of men — bristling bayo- 
nets and moral suasion — will be equally ineffectual to appease 
the multitudes whom hunger has rendered savage, and who 
can see nothing in submission but famine and a lingering 
death. The foundations of society shall be upheaved, and gov- 
ernment, religion, and law must go down together through the 
parted crust. This startling issue has again and again been 
providentially postponed : but political philosophy has failed to 
furnish a solution of the problem itself, which like a grim and 
ghastly spectre haunts the future and fills it with the most dis- 
mal apprehensions. The only hope for that future is afforded 
by a firm faith in that sublime providence which has hitherto 
staved off the fearful issue by methods surpassingly wonderful. 
The immense waste of life through disease and war has, during 
the past, partially served to keep population below the point of 
redundancy. On the other hand, the progress of science, the 
multiplication of the arts, and the stupendous increase of wealth 
in every civilized land, have in the main given employment 
and subsistence to the population which is steadily swelling 
upward to this dangerous point of explosion. During hun- 
dreds of years the feudal system, which, for many reasons that 
I cannot take time even to hint, was entirely transitional, offered 
an awkward but tolerably successful mediation between these 
opposite interests. But upon its abolition in the general march 
of European civilization, the conflict was renewed, and not a 
solitary expedient has since been suggested to appease a strife 
daily increasing in bitterness and fury. Then followed, before 
the great climax was reached, the discovery of this western hem- 


I 28 1 

isphere ; as though God had reserved half the globe to relieve 
the crisis in human history, and afford man other centuries of 
reflection and experiment before it is finally confronted. Dur- 
ing three of these centuries, Europe has been pouring her re- 
dundant population upon the new world, which under the 
management of a wise and great people is probably destined 
to feed hundreds of millions from her fertile bosom. But the 
end must come at last, and it draws on with accelerated pace. 
The progress in medical science, by its triumphs over disease, 
is daily lengthening the term of human life. The benign spirit 
of Christianity, together with the soft influence of true civiliza- 
tion, is gradually banishing war as an obsolete evil. Com- 
merce too is throwing out her delicate fibers, and weaving the 
fine network of a common interest over the globe. With the 
iron bands over which she drives her busy traffic she knits the 
nations into a confederacy of peace ; and converts the world 
into one vast whispering gallery, as she lays her electric wire 
like an auditory nerve upon the ocean’s bed. If on the one 
hand the causes are removed which retard the increase of popu- 
lation, on the other mechanical invention is daily substituting 
limbs of iron and sinews of steel for those of the human frame ; 
and labor is thrown by a double process more entirely at the 
mercy of its relentless foe. What is to be the end of all this ? 
Grant, if you please, that through economy and prudence men 
may learn to live on much less than they now consume; still 
there is a limit to retrenchment itself. Grant that through 
industry and thrift the means of subsistence can be largely in- 
creased, still there is a boundary to human acquisition. Grant 
that through the discoveries of science the productiveness of the 
earth may be almost fabulously stimulated, so that every rood of 
ground shall maintain its man ; yet the earth can give no more 
than she has, while there is no limit to the locusts that devour it. 
Upon all these suppositions you do but postpone the evil, which 
is aggravated by that delay. Possibly, God might interpose to 
regulate the law of increase, when the earth shall groan beneath 


the heaviest pressure of population she can sustain ; yet that is a 
venture setting aside every law from which men obtain the 
data for their conclusions. Possibly, in mercy he may bring 
the world to an end before this consummation of human misery 
is reached. Perchance this itself may be the catastrophe which 
shall effect its dissolution, when “the moon shall be turned into 
blood,” and the sun go out in darkness, and the earth be rolled 
up as a moth-eaten and worn-out garment. But postulating, as 
political science must do, the continuation of man upon the 
globe under the same laws which it now observes and 
classifies, what is the end to be, when Europe shall be full — 
and America shall be full — brimming over with a restless 
race that never learned to be quiet, and cannot, as the 
myriads of listless Asiatics, live and rot like the luxuriant vege- 
tation on the very spot where'it grows ? These sad and hard 
questions are useful if they compel you to see that this great 
problem of all history is yet unsolved ; that no reconciliation 
between capital and labor has yet been achieved ; and that the 
crisis is only postponed to fall with more crushing ruin upon 
the generation whose fate it shall be to meet it. Yet if human 
wisdom from below shall ever devise its solution, or God give 
inspiration from above, there is no people beneath the arch of 
heaven under conditions so favorable to grapple with its diffi- 
culties and to master its dangers. If it fails of an answer at 
our hands, I do not see but the last hope of mankind perishes 
in the acknowledgment of our defeat. With a whole conti- 
nent for our domain, whose virgin soil scarcely bears as yet 
the scars of human tillage ; with vast tracts of territory abso- 
lutely vacant of habitations ; with a population which, com- 
pared with the millions into which they shall multiply, is only 
as the acorn to the spreading oak; with a government, free 
almost as the air, and elastic as human hope ; with institu- 
tions that are the simple outgrowth of our national character ; 
with the noblest race that God ever gave for the noblest ends 
to dwell upon the earth, and with that race standing upon the 


top of all past human experience ; above all, with full time be- 
fore us ere the pinch of this great question can be felt : verily, 
who better than ourselves deserve to be held as trustees for man- 
kind, and responsible for the resolution of this knotty point in 
political economy, if indeed, it be capable of any, in such 
a world as ours ? Should it be the mission of our country to 
achieve this problem, human history shall with us have reached 
its culmination ; and the splendor of the sun at noon shall not 
outshine the glory of the American name in giving this day of 
brightness to a world in anguish. 

I cannot forbear tracing the connexion between this subject 
and the question which for twenty-five years has so deeply agi- 
tated the civilized world. It is the fashion of mankind to go 
periodically mad upon some politico-moral question — to beat up 
a wild crusade which history never fails at length to stamp as 
stupendous folly. The prevalent fanaticism upon the subject of 
slavery will form no exception to this broad statement. When 
the storm bursts in its fury upon the ocean’s bosom, and her 
waves seem to dash themselves against the very stars, there is a 
calm in the great deep below where the sea-nymphs sing in their 
grottos of pearl, like the peace of eternity : such a calm pre- 
vails in the serene deep of history which the ‘billows of this 
angry strife have never touched. The storm will pass — the 
heavens shall smile again upon the sea, and history shall 
scarcely know that the rude breath of this fanaticism ever 
ruffled its surface. 

Say what men may against slavery, in the patriarchal form in 
which it exists amongst us, it does reconcile, so far as it goes, 
this mighty conflict between capital and labor. Capital owns 
the labor, and must protect and cherish it in order to secure a 
return from its own investment: and it is precisely in this 
economical view that the question of slavery is finally to be 
settled, if settled at all. Christendom may lift its voice to de- 
nounce it as the plague spot upon American history, the fretting 
leprosy which is to waste and destroy the body politic. Yet 


those who have considered the teachings of history know well 
that it is the “peculiar institution” of no period or clime ; and 
that servitude, in some of its forms, has been the only solution 
of this difficult problem ; the only mediation by which, in all 
the past, this bitter strife has been composed. We might, I 
know, as well address a remonstrance to the whirlwind crashing 
on in its pathway of ruin, as seek by words of reason to lay the 
spirit of a wild fanaticism. They must both blow on, till they 
crack their cheeks and find at last they cannot shake the earth 
off its axes. But we should ourselves understand that this ques- 
tion of domestic slavery is but one aspect, grave and solemn, of 
this momentous problem of political philosophy. If under 
given circumstances there are nations who repudiate this system 
for themselves, be it so : they are only working out this same 
great problem under one set of conditions, and we under 
another. That is all the difference — and until some approxi- 
mation to a safe result shall attend their experiments, it were 
simple infatuation in us to surrender our historic position, and 
give up the only solution which the experience and wisdom 
of six thousand years have as yet devised. During a short 
life I have seen more than one revolution of public sentiment 
on this whole subject. Once the only language heard was 
that of crimination, and of weak apology ; and the censures 
of mankind were parried by pointing to the providential 
necessity which had implicated us in an evil that could not 
be removed. Then ruder assaults compelled a closer investi- 
gation ; and the question was studied as one of social order ? 
of morals, and of religion. By statesmen, statisticians, philo- 
sophers, and divines, the argument is now conducted with an 
earnestness which should convince the world that it turns not 
as before upon the compulsions of interest, but upon the pro- 
foundest convictions of right and truth. It is is time however, 
to put this question upon the historic basis, upon which as 
one of general politics it must at last be adjudicated. Let us 
say, with all the distinctness and emphasis with which words 


[ 32 | 


of destiny are ever uttered, that we will conserve this institution 
of domestic servitude, not only from the pressure of necessity, 
and from the instinct of interest — not only from a feeling of 
trusteeship over the race thus providentially committed to us — 
not even at last from a general conviction of the righteousness 
of our course — but also from a special sense of duty to mankind 
Least of all can we think of surrendering it, when over all the 
globe the crust bends and sways upon which the nations 
tread ; threatening at every step to part asunder and engulph 
all that is stable and fair in the sea of molten fire that rolls 
its flood beneath. With the world under press of sail driving 
forward to its fearful crisis, and with this great problem 
unsolved, upon which its fate must turn — all portions of this 
confederacy may well be invoked to unite their wisdom 
and their patriotism in its solution. This highest achieve- 
ment of American statesmanship will be the accomplishment 
of our historic mission, and win for us the eternal gratitude 
of the human race. 
































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